


Sick of Staying Away

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exes, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 06:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12227523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: Bellamy's ex-girlfriend texts him to see if he knows where her thermometer is and he's incapable of not going over to check on her. He's a worrier by nature. It doesn't have to mean he's still in love with her (even if he definitely is).





	Sick of Staying Away

**Clarke:**  Where do you keep my thermometer?

Bellamy scrubs a hand over his face. It's his day off from both the bar and classes, and it has been shaping up to be a pretty good one. He actually got to work out for once, ran some errands that have desperately needed to be run, and now he's on the couch catching up on one of his shows he doesn't have time for.

Of course today would be the day his ex-girlfriend, whom he hasn't heard from at all in the months since she broke up with him, decides to reach out.

**Bellamy:** Did you check the closet in the bathroom? If it's not there idk where it is.

**Clarke:** Maybe I can get Maya to bring me one home from the hospital.

**Bellamy:** Encouraging your roommate to commit misdemeanors for you. Nice.

**Clarke:** Thanks anyways.

And then, a few moments later.

**Clarke:** Sorry to bother you.

He stares at the texts for a while, torn. Part of him-- a bigger part than he's really comfortable with-- is worried about her. Clarke always prided herself on her immune system of steel. She never takes days off for her health, even if she ought to. That she's home in the middle of the day on a Wednesday instead of at work is troubling.

He also knows what she's like when she is sick. She gets grumpier and more belligerent and feels like she has to prove (to whom, he isn't sure) exactly how _fine_ she is. She'll take on way too much and not only slow down the healing process but probably not stop until she passes out on the nearest horizontal surface.

Bellamy makes himself finish the episode he's on before he gets up and puts his shoes on. It doesn't have to _mean_ anything, okay? But he'd made his favorite brothy, spicy soup earlier in the week, the one he knows she loves when her nose is stuffed up, and he sincerely doubts she's eaten anything today. He'll bring her some, make sure she's not out cold somewhere that will screw up her back, and then he'll be able to get on with his day.

When he arrives at her apartment, she doesn't answer the knock. She at least hasn't left the front door unlocked like she used to when they first started dating. It was only after he'd unloaded all of his stress about it on her that she'd started being more mindful of locking it, and offered him her spare key. The same one he now uses to let himself in.

"Clarke?"

The air inside is a little stale and he can hear the dehumidifier going in her bedroom, which is an encouraging sign that she isn't sleeping it off on the kitchen table, or with her face down in the couch cushions as he'd found her more than once.

He puts the soup in the fridge and tries not to worry too much about the collection of takeout containers inside of it. That should be it. He's brought her the soup, knows she's safe in bed. Mission accomplished, he can go home.

Instead, he finds himself making his way back to the bedroom.

He just has to see her, he tells himself. Make sure she's okay, let her know the soup is there if she wants it. _Then_ he'll leave.

The bedroom door squeaks as usual when he cracks it open and he winces into the darkness, hoping he hasn't woken her.

"Clarke?"

A lump under the covers shifts.

"Bell'my?"

Her voice is croaky and weak and it stabs him in the chest with both sympathy and longing. He's missed her so much.

"Hey," he says his voice softer now, and gentle as he crosses to her bedside and crouches to see her better. She's flushed and bleary-eyed, nose a violent red. When he brushes matted hair off her forehead, she's warm to the touch. Feverish, for sure. Clarke's eyes flutter when he touches her and she leans into his hand, so he keeps going. Strokes over her hair and lets his nails scratch against her scalp like she always begs-- begged-- him to do after a particularly long day.

"You doing okay?" He asks, soft.

To his horror, Clarke bursts into tears. They're of the ugly-crying, desperate variety, running in rivulets down her flushed cheeks and accompanied by high-pitched, hiccuping gasps, he assumes because her nose is so stuffed up.

"Hey, no," he says, startled. One of her hands worms out from under the blankets to clutch at his arm. "Don't cry. It's okay, shhh."

Somehow his reassurances only seem to make her cry harder, and his heart cracks a little at the sound. He wedges himself on the bed with her, helpless not to pull her into his arms and let her cry it out on his chest. He keeps his hand going in her hair, his other stroking up and down her arm where it's wrapped tightly around him, trying to quiet her.

"You're not supposed to be here," she says at last, voice groggy from sickness and thick from crying. But she doesn't loosen her hold, so he doesn't move.

"What?"

"You're not supposed to be here," she repeats, burrowing her nose into his shoulder. He's pretty sure he's going to have snot on him. "I hurt you. You're not supposed to be-- making me feel better."

Bellamy sighs and stares up at the ceiling like it might have a guide for getting over his ex written on it if he could just look hard enough. Because he isn't over her, and it doesn't really feel like he will be any time soon. She'd been his best friend for years before they started dating, and her removing herself from the equation had left a huge, gaping hole in his life.

He wanted to be pissed at her, but more than anything he was just devastated. He'd thought they were happy, and she thought it wasn't working, so she'd ended things and left him to wonder where it had gone wrong.

It hurt a little bit more to realize he always kind of believed they wouldn't last, that she'd realize she could do better. But he'd never been able to convince himself that she didn't miss him too. Even if she didn't love him the way he loved her, he knows how much their friendship meant to her.

Knows that she didn't _want_ to hurt him.

So as much as his sense of self-preservation is telling him he needs to extract himself from the situation, to go back to the safety of his own, Clarke-less apartment, he can't just leave her there feeling shitty and guilty, sick and crying. It's not something he's capable of.

Instead, he adjusts his hold, settling in, and presses his lips to the crown of her head.

"Don't worry about me, Princess. Just-- get some sleep, okay? You'll feel better when you wake up."

"Will you be here?"

"Yeah." He exhales slow, resigning himself to it. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Promise?"

He huffs. Even sick, Clarke is still Clarke. Always pushing.

"Promise." His hand on her arm grows heavy and slow, coaxing her to sleep, and after a few minutes her mouth breathing matches his pace, evening out as she gets sucked under.

When sleep starts to tug at him, his eyes staying closed longer and longer on every blink, Bellamy makes himself slip out from under her. He's under no illusions that he'll be leaving her apartment anytime soon, but he can't let himself get too comfortable there with her. He doesn't get to have this again.

Instead, he tosses a load of her laundry in, adding his snotty, tear-stained shirt to the mix and shrugging on an old t-shirt of his that's still in one of her drawers. He goes through her apartment with a trash bag, collecting balled-up tissues and cough drop wrappers. He wipes her counters down with a rag, goes through and checks that all the leftovers in the fridge are still good and throws out the ones that are beginning to mold.

When he runs out of ways to put his restlessness to good use, he sinks onto her couch and flips through the DVR, finding that she never stopped recording _Chicago P.D._ even though she couldn't care less for procedurals, and trying not to read too much into what that might mean.

It isn't until his stomach starts to growl that he realizes how long she's slept, so he heats two bowls of soup and carries them carefully into her bedroom, wondering if she'll tease him for breaking his no-food-outside-the-kitchen rule. Wondering if he wants her to.

He sets them down on her bedside table, shaking her shoulder gently. "Clarke."

"Mmph."

The noise of protest, familiar from countless weekends when she refused to get up as early as he did, makes him smile.

"Wake up, Princess. There's soup in it for you."

She opens one of her eyes. "Hot and sour?"

"Just like you right now," he teases lightly, his thumb rubbing her hip soothingly over the blankets. "Need help sitting up?"

"No, I can do it."

It takes her a while but she manages to push herself up in the end, leaning back against the headboard and letting her hands flop exhaustedly in her lap. She seems a lot more lucid than when he'd first arrived, but he still holds the bowl away from her when she reaches for it.

"You got it? I'm really good at the airplane thing, if you need help. That bit kills with my nephew."

Clarke groans, a faint smile coming to her face. "I think I've humiliated myself enough for one day, don't you?"

Bellamy smiles back and hands over the soup.

"You're sick. I think you get a pass."

"I don't want a pass." The smile fades from her face and she drops her gaze from his face to the bowl cradled carefully in her hands. "I broke your heart, and then I made you come over and take care of me when I'm sick. And _then_ I lost it all over you. I don't deserve a pass."

His throat tightens.

"What makes you think you broke my heart?" He asks, lightly. "Giving yourself a lot of credit there, don't you think?"

"Octavia yelled at me about it." She wets her lips. "And-- if I hurt you half as much as I hurt me, that's still too much."

"You did what you had to do, right?" He drops his own gaze. It's too much to look at her and pretend he's fine. He can't manage both at one time. "I don't hold that against you. And you didn't make me do anything today, I came over of my own accord."

"Still--"

"Do you want me to leave?"

She's quiet for a minute, but shakes her head at last. "No. But--"

"Then just-- drop it." He swallows. "I'm here because I want to be, okay?"

"Okay."

They sit in awkward silence for a few seconds before Clarke lifts a spoonful to her lips and slurps at it in that way that half of him hates and the other half thinks is cute (which only pisses the first half off more).

"Shit," she sighs. "I forgot how good this is."

"I'll give you the recipe."

He pushes himself over her legs to lean against the wall, perpendicular to the way she's sitting. As they sip at their soup and listen to the hum of the dehumidifier, Clarke tentatively tucks her toes, still under layers and layers of blankets, beneath his legs.

Conversation moves in stuttering steps, Clarke asking about his thesis and Bellamy wanting to hear if she has any new stories about her obnoxious coworker. It's easy to settle back into being around her, almost too easy. Every time she makes him laugh or he references an inside joke they used to have, he gets that pang of missing her that he's become so accustomed to and an awkward silence lags between them.

It's into one of those lulls that the words slip from his lips.

"I miss you."

Air gets trapped in his throat when she doesn't respond right away. From the corner of his eye, he can see her knuckles turn white.

"I miss you too," she says, voice tight. Like she might start crying again. "I'm-- I'm so sorry, Bellamy."

"Don't be sorry." He reaches for her hand and she takes it. "You didn't feel the same way I felt. That's not-- It sucks but it's not your fault, okay?"

"That's not-- You don't really think that, do you?" Her eyes are full of regret when he finally finds the courage to meet them. She squeezes his hand harder. "I didn't break up with you because I didn't have enough feelings for you. I felt _too_ much for you, Bell. I was terrified. And I've regretted it every minute since I left."

"Damn it, Clarke." He lets his eyes close, trying to absorb this information as the world warps around him. "Why didn't you just talk to me about it?"

"I know." Her voice breaks. "I'm so sorry."

"I know." He sighs, opening his eyes and dropping her hand. "Eat your soup."

He doesn't stay much longer after that, too distracted and disoriented to carry any sort of conversation. She looks better by the time he leaves, a little more human, which is a comfort even if he's slowly coming undone inside. If getting over her when he thought she didn't have feelings for him was difficult, getting over her when he knows she loved him is going to be even harder.

She walks him to the door, biting her lip so hard he thinks it might start bleeding.

"Thanks for coming," she says, soft. He nods, trying for a smile.

"Feel better."

"I'll do my best."

He wants to wrap her up in a hug but instead he just nods and heads down the stairs, realizing he wouldn't be able to let her go if he held her again.

The next few days are sort of a blur. He pushes all thoughts of Clarke aside, tries to ignore the knowledge that sits unavoidable in the background of every thought he has. But seeing her again, hearing her tell him how much she'd cared about him, it was like picking at the scab that had just started to heal. He feels every bit as ripped open as he had the day she'd ended things.

When he opens the door a few nights later to find her standing there, playing with the zipper on her jacket nervously, his traitorous heart jumps.

"Hey."

"Hey." She worries her lip again and holds out something in her hands. "I'm returning your Tupperware."

"Oh. Thanks." He takes it, feeling decidedly unbalanced. "You look better."

"I feel better. Mostly." She hesitates. "I know I don't deserve this, but-- Do you think you could ever forgive me? It doesn't have to be today, or even soon, but-- Do you think someday we could be friends again?"

It takes him a moment to find his voice.

"I've already forgiven you," he admits, his breath catching at the relief in her eyes. "But as for friends... I don't know."

Her expression falls.

"I understand."

"No, I don't think you do." He takes a deep breath. "I'm still in love with you. I'm in love with you, but what you told me the other day gave me too much hope, I think. If you're too scared of being with me, I'm going to need some time to get over you before I can be your friend again."

She stares for a beat. "I don't want you to get over me."

"No?" The hope rising in his chest is mirrored in her expression. She shakes her head.

"No. I want to try again. I can do better this time."

Bellamy cracks a smile. "Don't tell me you want me back so you can one-up your past self."

"That's only like five percent of it." She smiles back. "I love you too. And I'm going to prove it to you, starting now. If now is a good time, I mean."

"I don't know, I had a pretty busy evening of yelling at the TV scheduled," he teases, pushing the door open wider. "You want to come in?"

"If I do, I'm never leaving."

Bellamy wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into his chest, feeling whole for the first time in a while when she hugs him back instantly.

"That's fine by me."

They break their embrace just long enough to make it to the couch, where she curls around him with her lips pressed against his chest. He gets it. He doesn't want to stop touching her for any longer than he has to.

"I was in the middle of an _NCIS_  marathon," he starts. Clarke groans.

"And I couldn't persuade you to switch it to something else?"

"I don't know," he teases, his hand slipping underneath the hem of her shirt to feel the warmth of her skin. "You did break up with me, so--"

To his great relief, her sense of humor is as bad as his, so she laughs and settles in closer.

"That's true," she admits. "Fair's fair."

 

He comes down with whatever she'd had a few days later, and she's the one to stroke his hair, his head feeling stuffed with cotton where it lies in her lap. The petulant whine he makes when she pulls her hand away is a little embarrassing, but she did leak all sorts of fluids all over him, so he figures she can put up with it.

"Sorry," she laughs, carding her fingers through his hair again. "I was ordering you some soup."

"I _made_ yours."

"Yeah, but you're already miserable enough without my cooking." Her lips brush his forehead, cool and soft. "And it's a little bit my fault you're sick in the first place."

He nuzzles into her thigh, slinging an arm around her waist. "Worth it."

"Yeah," he hears her say as he starts to drift off. "I think so too."


End file.
